


waking up slowly

by dizzy



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-13
Updated: 2017-04-13
Packaged: 2018-10-18 07:28:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10612128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy
Summary: "Oh my god, are you Dan and Phil? Can I get a picture?"





	

Five seconds before a camera flashes. 

Five seconds to gather themselves, to breathe in and out some space between them. 

Five seconds to tense, for their mouths to draw tight. 

Five seconds for Dan's hand to twitch, five seconds for Phil to recognize that familiar fear and chase it away with an understanding look. 

They're good at doing a lot with a little time. When they turn, there are smiles on their faces. 

"Oh my god, are you Dan and Phil? Can I get a picture?"

It's just a picture. Everyone wants a picture. There's nothing wrong with it; five seconds of Dan and Phil's lives, another five, another five after that. A single moment for each single person, an unending blur of them for Dan and Phil. 

But they can have their pictures, carefully constructed to give away nothing. That's fine.

*

With every step into a room they've never been in before, Dan spins a fantasy in his mind of what would happen _if_ : 

If they weren't so well-known, he could put his arm around Phil while they take in the view. 

If they were ready to be out, he could rest his head on Phil's shoulder. 

If it didn't matter who heard them, he could tell Phil how lovely he looks in the paleness of the almost-sunset. 

Life is what you make it, Dan's grandmother always told him. 

Life, Dan actually thinks, makes itself around you and doesn't really care what you want. It's a series of choices where no answer is perfectly right but many are perfectly wrong. Dan’s life right now is many things, almost none of them what he set out to make it into. 

So he plays out all the decisions he didn't make, and all the ones he just hasn't made yet, until he gets a sharp elbow to the arm from Phil. "With me, please," Phil requests, in that quiet soft-deep voice, because he knows how Dan's mind can wander. 

"Yeah," Dan says. Because he is here and maybe he won't put his arm around Phil or his head on Phil's shoulder and maybe they keep twisting their words around affectionate intonation instead of saying things outright, but tuning the voices in his mind out and focusing in on where he is and who he's with reminds him that life isn't all bad, anyway. 

*

Phil's in the bathroom. He's been in the bathroom for about twenty minutes, and Dan's not sure what he's doing but in the effort of keeping romance alive he doesn't plan on asking. 

Instead he posts a picture, and likes a few tweets, and wiggles his toes to rumple a tightly room-service made hotel bed duvet. 

Phil comes out of the toilet, politely closing the door behind him and then flopping down beside Dan. "Hi," he says, eyes closed. His hair is very black and pushed back from his face. There are fine lines near his eyes and against his cheek from all those years of smiles. Dan can see the stubble coming in, that he needs to pluck his eyebrows, that his skin is slightly oily. He can see all those human details that make him real in a way they aren't to so many people. 

"Dan," Phil says again. 

"Hi," Dan says, belatedly. 

Phil reaches out and shuts Dan's laptop. "Enough of this. Pay attention to me." 

Dan whines, but it's only a token protest. 

*

Dan waits until Phil is asleep and finds the airport photos from the first flight. 

He looks at the faces in the photo. He remembers the moment before - the stupid joke Phil made. He remembers seeing the girls approach from across the wide expanse of airport. He remembers the stab of desperation, the flare of panic. 

He didn't make this choice. But then again, he did. 

He looks at Phil beside him. He picks up his phone and taps various spots of the screen until the lighting is kind and he can make out Phil's profile in the city light filtering through the window. 

It's a good picture. 

He opens up instagram, toys with the settings. Ten minutes on filters, five more on a caption. 

His heart is in his throat. He looks at Phil again, asleep. 

Life is what he makes of it. He could change it all in five seconds, with a photograph. 

Something oppressive in his chest loosens hold. He can breathe again, almost. 

Dan closes out of the app and slides his body down under the sheets, hand seeking out Phil. He rests it on the center of Phil's chest, feeling soft hair and warm skin under his fingertips. Under that, the steady thump of a heartbeat. 

Sometimes just knowing he can is enough.

**Author's Note:**

> True friends put up with you when you message them at ten pm begging them to proofread something so you can post it tonight. Thanks, Rizzo!


End file.
